social change Essay

Explain how work, education and social stratification are closely related within a knowledge-based societyA knowledge society is defined as a society where human structured organisation based on contemporary develop knowledge and representing new quality of life support systems. Likewise, the term knowledge-based society might suggest that having a full understanding of distribution of knowledge is extremely vital and that it’s needed in the world (Afgan and Carvalho, p.

28, 2010). Furthermore, a knowledge society tries to represent a paradigm that is new for more development to occur in the future (Afgan and Carvalho, p.28, 2010). This may include development of economic, social and technological, for example developing knowledge in the society could lead to industrial development which could lead to an increase in capacity for energy consumption. This assignment will address how work, education and social stratifications are closely related within a society that is knowledge-based. It will provide academic sources to support the arguments that are present in this assignment. This assignment will also provide a conclusion in the end to summarise the whole assignment.

One reason how work, education and social stratification are closely related within a knowledge-based society is that they are all influenced by the cultural differences that many individuals possess which allows all 3 things to compliment each other. Firstly, in relation to conflict theory, Bourdieu argues that children who are exposed to an elite culture at home have a massive advantage in schools and that teachers tend to recognise and reward those individuals and exclude the other children who lack the elite culture that other individuals have, and this action is subject to ethnic minority individuals or working class to form a symbolic violence which forces them in a mechanism that is competitive and only rewards dominant cultural capital (Tzanakis, p.77, 2011). This might imply that children who are from an ethnic minority group might not receive the appropriate education provided for them according to the quote and it could result in them achieving very low qualification levels due to teachers favouring those from elite culture, for example within the UK, 2011 ethnic minority groups including Bangladeshi and Pakistani are less probable to have a degree qualification than white British individuals and that Bangladeshi and Pakistani individuals who are aged 50 or above are 75 and 65% have no qualifications (Lymperopoulou, 2015), which may suggest that they would have received less tuition from their teachers as they were probably given less resources than the other students (Lymperopoulou, 2015). This is where work comes in as low levels of qualifications may result in ethnic minorities struggling to get into high quality jobs due to the lack of knowledge that they might have due to being poorly educated, for example within the UK ethnic minorities are more unemployed than white British individuals (Lymperopoulou 2015). This suggests that being less educated may result in a lack of development in skills and expertise which could result in the difficulty of getting into high quality jobs or unemployment, for example ethnic minority groups such as Bangladeshi and Black are 10% and 9% unemployed whereas for white British individuals they are 4% unemployed (Department for Work Pensions, 2018). This demonstrates how ethnic minorities might have lack the development of skills in their education to successfully get into jobs as Bourdieu argues that ethnic minorities were less favoured in education. Similarly, social stratification also has an influence in the differences that each culture has. According to Bourdieu, he discovered that some individuals from the working class were living in marginal locations, low-income housing developments, difficult schools and in temporary work (Crompton, p.141, 2008). In relation to ethnic groups, they are more probable to be in a lower-class social group as they reside in more houses that contain more damp than ethnic majorities, for instance 8% of black African individuals reside in homes that contain damp whereas only 4% of white British individuals reside in homes that contain damp (Ministry of Housing and Local Government, 2018). Houses that contain damp may be associated with living in deprived areas which may have less schools and bad quality jobs. This is how all work, education and social stratification are all linked to culture as certain individuals from different cultures might be unable to participate in knowledge work. Secondly another link between education and work is that individuals who are educated will do extracurricular activities in their school for positional advantage in job markets. Firstly, many students strongly presume that they have to use additional resources within their education in order to promote the likelihood of them getting into jobs, for example students might assume that the degrees that they achieve might not guarantee them a job and that they will begin to realise that they should as value and distinction in there credentials such as participating in extra-curricular activities (Roulin & Bangeter, p. 21, 2013). This implies that student’s have that thought that the competition between various graduates in the labour market might be increasing and that doing extracurricular activities will enable students to show high levels of skills and competence. These skills might involve interpersonal skills, teamwork abilities, emotional resilience (Roulin & Bangeter, p. 23, 2013). Secondly, labour markers might be rather competitive, for instance according to (Roulin & Bangeter, p. 23, 2013) many graduates face a difficult task ensuring their employability in an increasingly competitive labour market. This makes it clear that some occupations are rather strenuous in terms of its competitiveness and that graduates may need to ensure that their employability is high enough for them to get into the labour market and doing extracurricular activities in school may help students develop their skills even further. This is how education and work and education intersect. In relation to technology, students may use technology in order to promote the development of their competence which may be useful for their future employment, for example technology might enable students to access and take part in specialized communities of practice, graduating to more complex activities and deeper participation as they will be able to gain the expertise that is required for them to become experts within a community (Office of Educational technology ,p.9, 2017) This implies that technology will be able to allow students to integrate more which could maximise the level of expertise and knowledge that they have. Furthermore, with the use of technologies students will be able to use digital tools such as websites to meet the range of learners from beginner to expert as they develop more experience (Office of Educational technology, p.22, 2017). The use of technologies may result in students getting the better out of their education from extracurricular activities and ensuring that they get a position in the job market. Furthermore, a link between social stratification and education is that different levels of social stratification may result in differences in educational achievement. According to Marx, the two great classes in society are the bourgeoisies and the proletariat (Crompton, p.49, 2008). The bourgeoisies are those who own and control the material means of production whereas the proletariat are more privileged as they tend to own their labour-power which they sell to the bourgeoisie’s so that they could survive (Crompton, p.49, 2008). In relation to Marxism, individuals who are from different classes may show different levels of educational achievement, for example individuals who are from the middle class can afford education as a consumption good (Crompton, p.162, 2008). This implies that those who are from the middle class have a high enough income to provide education for their children and they would make it easier for them to access education. Furthermore, those from the middle class see education as something that is necessarily required (Crompton, p.162, 2008), which makes it clear that they want their children to be at an advantaged as opposed to them being underprivileged. On the other hand, working class individuals are less probable to gain educational achievements, for example working class individuals are less likely to achieve higher education than middle class individuals (Crompton, p.162, 2008). This makes it clear that individuals from the working class may have less resources (Crompton, p.162, 2008) which may result in them struggling to give their children the assistance required for them to make achievements within higher education and it could influence the amount of knowledge and expertise that they might gain from education. In relation to the rational action theory Goldthorpe addresses that individuals from the working class particularly parents from the working class have poverty aspirations and that they are responsible for their failure (Crompton, p.162, 2008), which may suggest why they are less likely to achieve educational qualifications in comparison to middle class individuals. Likewise, middle class individuals may contribute more in the educational provision for their children than those from the working class, for example (Crompton, p.163, 2008) states middle class parents, however, had not such deference to professionals, and saw education as a shared enterprise however for the working class they would depend on the teacher to educate their child. This makes it clear as though individuals from the middle class will be able to contribute alongside with the teachers to ensure that their children get the extra provision required which would enable middle class individuals to have an advantage in educational achievement in comparison to working class individuals. Working class individuals depend too much on the teachers which would imply that they may show little involvement in the education for their children such as not providing home tuition. Finally, working class individuals may avoid sending their children to good quality schools as they might feel very humiliated (Crompton, p. 164, 2008), which could limit the chances of their children achieving very good grades as high-quality schools are good and may include provide advanced technology which will allow students to get a lot of benefits to achieve good grades, for example technology will provide access certain materials, resources and as well as tools (Office of Educational technology, p.28, 2017) in order to ensure students get educational achievements. In relation to the social change of higher education, participation of overall higher education was 3.4% in the year 1950, in 1970 it was 8.4%, 19.3% in 1990 and finally 33% in the year 2000 (Bolton, p.14, 2012). This shows a dramatic increase in higher education and that the change within higher education will enable more individuals to become less deprived as there is a bigger chance of them getting educational achievements which could result in better employment in the labour market. A link between social stratification and work is the differences in jobs performed. In relation to social class, women who are in the working class may be more probable to spend more time at home in comparison to women, for example a woman with a lower earning will perform more housework than a woman with a higher earning (McGuin and Oh, p.85, 2017). This makes it clear that women who have lower earnings may do more domestic work as they spend more time at home than women who have higher earnings and those who have higher earnings may be more outgoing as they are probably doing more jobs that are paid and away from home, for instance lower class women may perform child care, perform cooking, cleaning and as well as collect water. Likewise, women from the lower class may have a harder time reducing the amount of time they spend doing house work (McGuin and On, p.85, 2017). This is one example of how social stratification and work can intersect as it influences the frequency of jobs performed by each social class. Furthermore, women who are from working classes may engage more in gendered mothering roles and they may perform collaboration with their husbands in ensure that they alternate daily between unpaid care work and jobs that provide very low pay (McGuin and On, p.85, 2017). Women from the middle class however are more likely to perform in other jobs for instance, higher class women tend to work in male dominated workplaces than women from working classes and that lower-class women do jobs that have a very high female representation (McGuin and On, p.85-86). This makes it clear that women from the higher class are more outbound and are less dependent on the cultural norm or stereotypes where women always to stay indoors to perform unpaid work whilst the men are outside doing work, for instance higher class women may work as female managers (McGuin and On, p.85). In relation to education women who went to secondary schools might be more likely to be employed. This may result in developing more knowledge for those individuals as various employers may have knowledge which they may carry over to other individuals. In relation to social change the employment rates for women has decreased as the employment rate of women who were aged between 25-54 was 57% in the year 1975 and then the number increased to 78% in 2017. Likewise, the rate of full time jobs for women increased from 29% in 1985 to 44% in 2017 (Roantree and Vira, 2008). Conclusion